Читать книгу The Ones We Trust - Kimberly Belle - Страница 19

10

On Saturday, I steer my car across the border into Maryland, and the tax brackets rise like floodwaters all around me. The houses grow progressively bigger, their lots stretch wider and deeper, their lawns become greener and lusher. Minivans and hatchbacks give way to eight-cylinder SUVs and expensive German sports cars. They weave in and out of afternoon traffic on their way to the gym or the driving range or the mall, zipping around runners and pedestrians with diamond rings the size of marbles.

It’s here, at the tail end of a quiet residential street in Bethesda, that I find my brother Mike’s ten-thousand-square-foot monstrosity of stone and shingles. I ease to a stop behind my sister-in-law’s navy Range Rover, pluck the gift from the passenger’s seat and head up the herringbone walkway to the bleached oak double doors.

I punch the bell, and from somewhere inside a dog barks, a baby screams and my brother yells at both of them to quiet down. And then a door opens to reveal my niece, Rose, wearing a bright pink princess dress covered in what I sincerely hope is tomato sauce.

“Abbyyyyyyy! You came!” She pounces on me, wrapping herself around my right thigh like a monkey. Their dog, Ginger, comes sliding around the corner, and I brace for her attack to my other leg.

“Of course I came, goofball. I wouldn’t miss your third birthday party for the world.”

She looks up with wide and impossibly green eyes. “No, I’m four!”

“Silly me. I guess that’s why I got you a present, isn’t it?”

“But you already got me a present.”

Admittedly, I might have gone a little overboard with the giant pink-and-purple castle playhouse I paid the toy store to install in her backyard this past week, but I adore this child, would throw myself in front of a bus for her, hope if I ever have a daughter of my own she will be exactly like my adorable niece.